May, 2019
Indonesia is drafting ambitious plans for more than $400 billion in building projects, from constructing 25 airports to new power plants, as the government seeks to stoke growth in Southeast Asia’s largest economy, according to the country’s planning minister.
The sweeping proposal calls for a record 5,957 trillion rupiah ($412 billion) in investments from 2020 to 2024, Minister Bambang Brodjonegoro said in an interview this week. As much as 40% of the total will be funded directly by the government, 25% through state-owned enterprises and the rest through the private sector, he said. About 60% of the spending will go toward transportation-related infrastructure, according to a draft of the plan seen by Bloomberg and verified by the ministry.
Such spending would build on President Joko Widodo’s strategy of using infrastructure as a key plank to boost economic growth and spread wealth beyond the main island-powerhouse of Java, where the capital is located. Building critical ports and facilities is particularly complicated and costly in Indonesia because the country is dispersed across 17,000 islands through an area spanning the distance between New York and London.
Source: bloomberg.com
